The Pulpit Commentary on Song of Solomon 5:16

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Altogether lovely.

In the verses from the tenth to the sixteenth, the bride sets forth in detail the excellences and the attractiveness of her spouse. In similitudes according with Oriental imagination she describes the charm of his person, and accounts for the fascination he exercises. And she sums up the characterization by the assertion that he is "altogether lovely"—"totus est desiderabilis, totus est amor." Augustine, in language dictated by the fervour of his heart, expresses the spiritual truths enshrined in this exclamation: "My soul is a sigh of God; the heart conceives and the mouth forms the sigh. Bear, then, my soul, the likeness of the heart and of the mouth of God. Sigh thou for him who made thee!"

I. CHRIST IS ALTOGETHER TO BE LOVED AND DESIRED FOR WHAT HE IS IN HIMSELF. In his Person and character Christ is a Being who commands and attracts the love of all who are susceptible to the charms of spiritual excellence. There is beauty beyond that which is physical, beauty of which the charms of feature and of form are the appointed symbols. And for this beauty in most perfect manifestation we must look to Christ. Others have their excellences, but they have also their defects. In him alone every virtue is present and complete, in him alone every blemish is absent. He is at once above all praise and free from all blame. The soul that can recognize and delight in moral excellence finds all scope for such recognition and delight in him who is "fairer than the sons of men."

II. CHRIST IS ALTOGETHER TO BE LOVED AND DESIRED FOR WHAT HE HAS ACTUALLY AND ALREADY DONE FOR HIS FRIENDS. These know that he loved them, and that he loved them even "unto the end," that he "gave his life for his friends;" and this knowledge is ever in their memory, is ever affecting their hearts, is ever influencing the attitude of their whole being towards him. Nothing enkindles love like love. "We love him, because he first loved us."

III. CHRIST IS ALTOGETHER TO BE LOVED AND DESIRED AS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD. He who is possessed with the Spirit of Christ is not selfish in his affections. He feels the spiritual power of his Saviour's self-sacrifice. He loves his Lord, because that Lord has pitied and has died for men. Our love to Christ is not pure, is not perfect, until it springs from a grateful and sympathetic recognition of what he has done who "came into the world to save sinners."—T.

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